Are you afraid that loving and accepting yourself will make you lazy?

Are you afraid this will cause your fitness level to go backwards?

Well, actually it has the opposite effect. It makes you care more, for the right reasons, and in a much healthier way.

It makes your life fuller and less stressful.

What does loving yourself mean?

Taking Your Worth Off Superficial Things

It partially means, taking your self-worth off superficial (surface) things. Surface things that don’t matter in the grand scheme/purpose of your life. Like appearance.

Being obsessed with these surface things distracts you from living your life to the absolute fullest.

There’s a Difference Between Caring About Your Appearance and Being Obsessed with It

This doesn’t mean that you won’t care about your appearance-our culture will still have an influence on you. It just means that when your WORTH isn’t on your appearance, YOU can actually make the CHOICE as to what really matters to YOU. What YOU actually like or how YOU want to live.

Not making subconscious decisions based on how you’ve been programmed to think by our culture.

Focus On Why You’re Here

The other part of loving yourself is seeing your worth as a unique human being and what you bring to the world. Seeing that you’re worthy because you have a job to do here. A job that no one else can do quite like you.

Obsessing over surface things distracts you from living from this ultimate place.

Our culture imposes a lot of ideas of what we “should” be. But, they’re all distractions in the big scheme of your life.

How Does This Change Your Relationship With Exercise?

You Come from a Healthier Place

When you love yourself for YOU, and take your worth off of your body, you will want to TAKE CARE of yourself. Exercise will become an act of self-care, not punishment for not being “good enough.”

And since it’s changed to self-care, it’s much more enjoyable.

You Are Now Able to Do Exercise that You Like

You may also at this point have the courage to try different forms of exercise that you actually like (if you don’t like your current exercise and it feels like torture.)

And this doesn’t mean getting lazy with exercise, there’s a difference between a good workout where you pushed hard and felt great, and one where you annihilated yourself because you’re trying to hate yourself into change.

How Does It Change Your Relationship with Your Food?

Takes Away Your Fear with Food

When your self-worth is on your body, this can create a torturous relationship with food. Since food choice can influence the look of your body, your food choices indirectly affect your self-worth.

When you take your self-worth off your body, you are able to develop a better relationship with food. It will no longer control you because your choices don’t affect your worth as a human being.

The fear diminishes. And you’re now able to look at food objectively. Food becomes what it actually is-just food.

Go back and think of yourself as a you did as a child-before the world started making you think weren't good enough.

How does this change your life as a whole?

I can’t get into all the life reasons in this little tiny post. But, loving yourself and changing how you show up in your own life changes absolutely everything. When you finally love yourself, you are no longer scared to be who you are and do what you need to do with your life.

Everyone is here for a reason. And women having their worth in all the wrong places distracts them from doing what they’re supposed to do here and who they’re supposed to help in their life.

Escape Your Prison of Unworthiness

I say this all the time, but having your worthiness on your body (or anywhere else that it’s not supposed to be) is like living in a prison in your own head. And if you’re going through this, you know exactly what I mean.

Free yourself from this bullshit and live your fullest life.

Do what you’re meant to do here.

Think Fresh and Live Your Fittest and Fullest Life,

~Ashley

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Do you dislike being in pictures?

Do you dislike having your “flaws” permanently displayed in a picture?

But, do you also feel that knot in the pit in your stomach when you step out? Like it’s telling you you’re jumping out of something important?

Why It Hurts

you’re jumping out of your own life

It’s a brief second, but there’s a lot of these brief seconds in your life, right? These are seconds you’re missing out on with those you love.

This is why it feels like you’re escaping one kind of pain, but gaining another.

You're Reinforcing Your Negative Body Image and Hurting Loved Ones

Not only does stepping out of the picture reinforce your negative relationship with your body and yourself (because behaviors reinforce thoughts), but it also makes other’s miss out as well.

The people who love you WANT to see you in pictures. They WANT you to be with them and share in these special moments.

They WANT to be able to look back at those moments and see you with them.

Why You Feel This Way

Your Self-Worth is On Your Body

You want to step out of pictures because our culture has taught you to put your self-worth on your body. You have accepted your worth as a person is either partially or wholly determined by how your body looks.

You have been taught that you ARE your body.

You have accepted this as your truth.

But!!! This is only your current truth because you are CHOOSING it to be.

Because the ACTUAL truth is our culture’s expectations are made up, and you are way more than your body.

And you have a choice…

How to Start Rocking Some Photos!

If you want to be in pictures confidently with your loved ones, you need to practice staying in the picture, start viewing yourself as a whole person, and figure out where your value actually is.

Stay in the Picture

Even though staying in the picture will be hard at first, you want to help reinforce the action you want to take, and be comfortable with in the future.

The more you do this, and work on the things below, the easier it will become.

View Yourself As a Whole Person

Your body is your vehicle. It’s not who you are as a whole being.

As a whole being, you’re made up of your body, mind, and soul. We start experiencing pain when we forget the other two and put all our worth on our body.

Start figuring out what unique viewpoints you bring to the world-your mind’s value.

What lights you up inside so greatly that you can’t ignore it? How are you here to help the world? This is your soul’s value.

How can you use your body as a vehicle to do these things? This is where your body’s value ACTUALLY is.

Stop Letting the Media In

The media is one ginormous distraction from you living your fullest life.

You already have all of this worth in you, but you're being distracted from it by a powerful outside source.

If you want to take your worth off of your body, you need to stop listening to the mediatell you that you are your body.

If you keep letting these messages in, it’s going to be very hard to heal.

YOU are in charge of what you let into your mind.

Embrace the Practice

The process of viewing yourself as a whole person is a practice.

This deep healing and searching is not easy. But, if you keep practicing, it’s something that you will get better at and will make you feel better in time.

If You Can’t Do it For Yourself right now, Do it For Those You Love

When you die, your loved onesaren’t going to say, “Wow, Mom’s fat roll is hanging over her pants an extra inch more than normal.”

No!

They’re going to say, “Wow, look at mom! It’s great to see her! She always knew how to make me laugh.

I miss her.”

Live Your Fullest Life

You have such a full life to live. Don’t let yours pass you by, by living less than your most stellar life.